The Disinterment of Venus (Synopsis)

Clark Ashton Smith

A marble Venus, exhumed in a monastery ^garden^ [turnip-field] in Averoigne by some ^monks^ [peasants], which has a baleful influence on all who touch or behold it, inducing nympholepsy and a sort of pagan madness or possession. The statue is left standing in the field beside the pit from which it had been digged, and people fear to approach it. A young monk goes to it by night before moonrise, with a hammer, intending to smash it to fragments. The monk fails to return; and the next day it is seen that the statue has disappeared. People, among whom are the possessed and the unpossessed, visit the field, and find that the statue has fallen back into the pit, carrying with it the monk, who lies dead beneath its weight with his arms about the Venus, which is still unbroken.

^xxx^ xxx was added by Smith.
[xxx] xxx was deleted by Smith.
{plotted June 1931}